Case · Export · West Africa

Six thousand eight hundred square metres, and no second delivery.

Three buildings in Burkina Faso — a waste treatment works and a logistics warehouse — fabricated in Jinzhou as pre-engineered frame and envelope, and packed to the erection sequence. Once the container has sailed, nothing can be added from the yard.

6,800 m²across three buildings
3buildings in one shipment
1kit, packed to sequence
West Africadestination
The difficulty

Distance Turns Packaging into Engineering

At home, a missing bracket is a van and an afternoon. Twelve thousand kilometres away it is a stopped site, a customs broker and a crew on standby.

01

Nothing can be missing

Not a bracket, not a bolt bag, not a tube of sealant. The packing list is not an inventory — it is the guarantee that the building can be finished.

02

Packing is the design

Bundles follow the erection sequence, so the first thing off the container is the first thing the crew needs. Loading the container is planned on the drawing, not judged at the port.

03

The envelope travels too

Sheets, flashings, fixings and closures ship with the frame, in the same colour and from the same coil. A repaired roof has to match the one that left the yard.

04

Someone else erects it

The crew on site has our drawings and nothing else. If a detail needs a phone call to explain, it is drawn wrong.

Factory buildings, Burkina Faso
Factory buildings, Burkina Faso — three buildings, 6,800 m², shipped from Jinzhou as one kit.
What it takes

Six Rules for a Site You Cannot Visit

Written for the case where the first time you see the building is in a photograph.

01

Count every part onto the list

The packing list is built from the model, item by item, and checked off against the bundles. It is the only inventory that will exist.

02

Pack in erection order

Bundles are numbered to the sequence, not to the drawing set, so the site is never unpacking to find one member.

03

Label to the drawing

Every bundle carries the mark that appears on the erection drawing. One number, one place, no guessing.

04

Write for a crew that has not met you

Erection drawings carry the sequence, the temporary bracing and the bolt sizes. Nothing relies on a conversation.

05

Plan the container, do not hope

Loading is drawn before the last bolt is boxed: how many pieces, in what order, and what goes in last because it comes out first.

06

Send spares for the small things

Bolts, washers, closures and a spare sheet or two. The cost of the spares is a fraction of the cost of the delay they prevent.

More

Other Cases and the Full Register

Shipping Far? Send the Drawing Before the Container Is Booked.

The packing plan has to be finished while the drawing can still change. After that, the container becomes the specification.

Send the drawing